His team didn’t win the match. It’s going to be a long night! …

For many women they know the trigger for violence can be based on many simple day-to-day issues. Therefore it is not just the violence itself but a life lived under continuous threat. How do you get a break from this? How do you find a better solution?

Visit the Lambeth Gaia Centre and the first thing that strikes you is how upbeat, happy and cohesive the 20 strong staff are. This is all the more powerful because of the depressing nature of their work – dealing with the victims of domestic violence.

The Gaia Centre in Lambeth has been going since 2007. In 2006 the Lambeth Labour group made tackling domestic violence a political priority. We decided it simply wasn’t good enough that in a borough such as Lambeth with one of the highest levels of domestic violence in London that we had such a poor service. Now we are celebrated as having one of the best responses to domestic violence and as being a local authority leader in setting up a women and girls anti-violence strategy. Our public communications campaigns tackling sexual violence have won awards and wide-ranging recognition.

The key to this improvement was how we approached reconfiguring the service. We didn’t start from a position that analysed the problem as one of only limited resources. Certainly we allocated more money after the pitiful lack of resource given by the previous Lib Dem-Tory administration here in Lambeth. But alongside financial certainty we knew we had to provide political confidence and trust if we were to develop an innovative and successful service. Essentially we had to mean it when we told officers to think broadly, boldly and creatively.

The starting point for change was discussion with people affected by domestic violence. We asked what would make you feel safe? What would help you? The results provoked sharply different priorities to long-held council assumptions. On a small but significant scale this led to the introduction of a handy person’s service to fortify doors and windows so women could feel safer at home; on a wider level it led to an intensive piece of work between officers and local GPs about how to recognise symptoms of domestic abuse.

Over the years, the Gaia programme has become more preventative based: there is now an outreach programme within schools to identify and work with young women who are particularly vulnerable to intimidation and violence. The number of partners that the programme works with has also greatly expanded – Gaia is no longer run directly by the council but works with the domestic violence charity Refuge. And more recently a volunteer programme has been established so that women who have benefitted from Gaia in the past, previous victims of domestic violence, can rebuild their lives while helping others to avoid intimidation.

The Gaia project is one of several Lambeth projects teaching us how to look at services differently.

We are reorganising the council so that we are working towards community outcomes; and that we achieve these by commissioning projects and activities. Put simply, we will be concentrating on how we make our residents feel safer rather than how we manage our community safety budget.

We have learnt that you need to give staff room to try new things; you need them to feel that getting the job done is more important than filling in forms; and you really need them to collaborate and find new partnerships with colleagues and the community if you are going to achieve real change.

Most importantly, our approach will involve working closely with our most valuable asset – our communities, our residents. These are the people who have been marginalised from the development of public services in the past but who are most often the greatest experts. We want to make sure that we are working with our communities – not developing services for them; that we are working out solutions to issues we face with them. This could mean commissioning new groups or trying brand new ideas. It is time to think laterally. We want to embrace a cooperative way of working that we believe will generate new ideas and improved practice.

This new approach is a fundamentally different way of shaping public services – one that will take time to develop and mature. But if our early experiences with projects such as Gaia are indicators we believe that the transformation in public services will be a positive one.

—————————————————————————————

Lib Peck is leader of Lambeth council and tweets @CllrPeck.

Lib will be speaking at One Nation public services: How do we encourage a greater sense of ownership?  on Tuesday 25 June, at 6pm in Committee Room 10, Houses of Parliament, alongside:

Stephen Twigg MP Shadow secretary of state for education
Liz Kendall MP Shadow minister for care and older people
Cllr Lib Peck Leader Lambeth council
Kevin Rowan Head of organisation and services, TUC
Chair: Steve Reed MP Croydon North

This event is organised by the Labour Policy Review and Progress.

Public services are facing near unprecedented challenges and change. How can Labour give more emphasis to people’s relationships in their organization, and encourage a greater sense of ownership by users, staff and the local communities they serve, while also ensuring efficiency and  value for money.

—————————————————————————————

Photo: Jack Hynes